Aura Tracking: COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Health Monitoring Platform

Unique Technologies developed a rapid-deployment health tracking platform for Aura Minerals, enabling real-time contact tracing and health monitoring across mining operations in Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overview

When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020, Aura Minerals faced a critical challenge. As a multinational mining company with operations across four countries, they couldn't simply shift to remote work. Mining requires physical presence. Workers operating machinery, collaborating in processing plants, and sharing transport to remote sites.

The company needed to protect hundreds of employees while maintaining essential operations that supported thousands of jobs across their supply chain and local communities. Generic health tracking solutions couldn't address the specific requirements of industrial workplaces where social distancing was often impossible and digital literacy varied significantly across the workforce.

Unique Technologies partnered with Aura Minerals to develop Aura Tracking—a purpose-built platform designed for rapid deployment, simple operation, and reliable contact tracing across international mining operations.

Key Metrics:

4 countries with simultaneous deployment (Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, United States)

Progressive Web App eliminating app store approval delays

Zero training required for workforce adoption

3-tier contact classification (Green/Yellow/Red zones)

Challenges

Speed Without Compromising Reliability

Building a health monitoring platform during a global health crisis meant working under extreme time pressure. The system needed to be production-ready rapidly while maintaining the reliability required for workplace safety decisions. Bugs or downtime weren't just technical inconveniences—they could undermine employee trust and compromise safety.

Universal Usability Across Diverse Workforces

Mining operations employ people with widely varying levels of digital literacy and technical comfort. The interface needed to be intuitive enough that any employee could use it confidently without training or support, regardless of their familiarity with smartphone apps or web platforms.

Contact Tracing in Industrial Environments

Office contact tracing typically tracks meetings and shared spaces. Mining operations required tracking more complex interaction patterns—workers using shared equipment, collaborating in confined spaces, traveling together to remote sites, and working in shifts where contact patterns change daily.

Multi-Country Compliance and Data Protection

Health data regulations differ significantly across Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. The platform needed to handle sensitive personal health information while complying with varying legal frameworks for data storage, access controls, and privacy protections.

Infrastructure for Remote Locations

Many mining sites operate in areas with limited or intermittent connectivity. The platform needed to function reliably even when network conditions were poor, while still delivering real-time alerts when connections were available.

Solutions and Implementation

Progressive Web App for Rapid Deployment

Rather than developing separate native iOS and Android applications that would require app store approvals and device-specific testing, Unique Technologies built Aura Tracking as a Progressive Web App. This architectural decision enabled immediate deployment across all devices through standard web browsers.

The PWA approach eliminated multiple bottlenecks: no waiting for app store review processes, no version fragmentation across different devices, and instant updates deployed simultaneously to all users. Employees simply accessed the platform through their mobile browsers, and the system worked immediately.

The PWA architecture also provided native-app functionality—push notifications, offline capabilities, and home screen installation—without the complexity and delay of traditional app development.

Radically Simple User Interface

Every design decision prioritized clarity and simplicity. The daily health check-in consisted of straightforward yes/no questions about COVID-19 symptoms—no medical terminology, no ambiguous phrasing, just clear questions anyone could answer confidently.

The interface used visual hierarchy and minimal text to guide users through workflows. Color coding (green/yellow/red zones) provided instant recognition of contact risk levels. Dropdown menus eliminated typing requirements, reducing errors and speeding up interaction reporting.

User testing focused on the employees least comfortable with technology. If the interface worked for them without explanation or training, it would work for everyone. This user-first approach proved essential for achieving rapid adoption across diverse workforces.

The Future of Software Engineering: What’s Changing Faster Than We Think

Three-Tier Contact Classification System

Aura Tracking implemented a practical contact classification model that matched how workers actually interacted:

🟩 Green Zone (Low Risk): Same room while maintaining distance—such as working at opposite ends of a processing facility or attending a distanced meeting.

🟨 Yellow Zone (Moderate Risk): Brief proximity without sustained contact—passing in hallways, brief conversations, or working in adjacent areas.

🟥 Red Zone (High Risk): Direct physical contact or sustained close proximity—handshakes, shared tools, working together in confined spaces, or traveling in the same vehicle.

This classification system balanced epidemiological accuracy with practical usability. It gave workers clear mental models for categorizing their interactions without requiring medical knowledge or complex judgment calls.

Automated Alert and Notification System

When an employee reported symptoms or tested positive, the system automatically identified all contacts within the relevant time window and sent immediate notifications. The alert logic considered contact classification levels:

Red zone contacts received urgent notifications requiring immediate action, while green zone contacts received informational alerts with monitoring guidance.

Notifications included clear instructions about next steps: who to contact, whether to self-isolate, and when to expect follow-up. This automation ensured consistent, rapid response without requiring manual intervention from already-stressed management teams.

Cloud-Native Infrastructure for Global Scale

The platform ran on cloud infrastructure with geographic distribution matching Aura Minerals' operational footprint. This architecture provided automatic scaling during high-usage periods (shift changes when hundreds of employees logged in simultaneously), redundancy ensuring uptime even during infrastructure failures, and data residency compliance with local regulations in each country.

Monitoring and alerting systems tracked platform health in real-time, enabling proactive response to potential issues before they affected users. During the critical early deployment period, the technical team maintained 24/7 coverage across time zones to address any emerging problems immediately.

Key Results

Deployed from requirements to production across Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States in weeks

Supported daily health check-ins and contact tracing for hundreds of employees across dispersed mining sites

Delivered stable operations with no major performance issues or incidents

Achieved near-universal adoption without formal training, manuals, or onboarding programs

Enabled instant visibility into symptoms and positive tests for managers

Delivered exposure notifications within minutes, accelerating isolation and testing actions

Increased workplace transparency, reducing anxiety and speculation

Improved trust and morale by making safety measures visible and reliable

The COVID-19 tracker App developed for us by Unique Technologies is working perfectly and is very helpful. The development process was quick, and the quality of work is high.
— Sergio Castanho, AURA 360 Mining